Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part III)

We had two previous installments where we showed the construction of our new chicken tractor:
Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part I) and
Building The New Chicken Tractor (Part II)

In Part II we finished building the tractor and we showed in Moving Day For The Meat Birds how we moved the birds into their new home.  Today I'll show you the last accoutrement of the chicken tractor that transforms the tractor into a 'mobile home' - WHEELS!

The design is not mine, but one that my friend Dale fabricated.  We pulled four of the inflatable tires off of the old chicken tractors and using a pivot on the axle that I'll show in the following photos, this design is versatile and genius!  Below you'll see the tractor in the down position, similar to when your car is in PARK.  In this case, the wheels are up and the chassis of the chicken tractor is resting on the ground, allowing no critters to get underneath and eat the chickens.

In this next position, you can see that the handle to the wheel assembly is in the horizontal position.  I call this the "Jacked Up Monster Truck" position.  In this position the chassis of the tractor is about as high as it will go.  This will come in handy when trying to roll over obstacles like fire ant mounds that are ubiquitous in the pasture.

In the next photo, you can see that the handle of the wheel assembly is at roughly a 45 degree angle.  There is a finishing nail nailed into the top of the handle and a chain with a hook on it fastens it in the DRIVE position.  Absent fire ant mounds, this position is perfect for rolling across the pasture.

Each day we move them to fresh grass so that they are able to forage on the grass while not sitting in their poop.  This also keeps the grass fertilized across the pasture.  In the DRIVE position, there is a small gap that makes it hard for a bird to fall underneath and get run over.  You still must be careful, though.  There is a rope on both the front and the back of the tractor so that you can pull it in either direction.  I pull while facing backwards so I can keep an eye on the birds.  They don't move too fast, you know.

The next photo simply shows the design of the off-set axle and you can get a better visual of how the pivot works.  Pretty cool, don't you think?  The birds are admiring the engineering of their mobile home.

The next and final photo shows a couple of things.  First you can see that we've fastened a blue tarp to the chicken tractor.  This provides some protection from the sun and rain, while still allowing airflow.  I simply attached it by using zip ties through the grommets around the wire fencing that makes up the outside of the tractor.  Next you can see the waterer that sits atop a blue tub and gravity feeds water via tubing into the bell waterer that is suspended from the 1x4 that runs along the top of the tractor.  Finally, you can see the "Trail of Smell" behind the tractor. The chicken poop initially kills the grass, but the grass comes back with great vigor, fed by the rich chicken poop.

And that, folks, is the new chicken tractor.  We have had some severe weather lately, including strong wind and hail, and Tricia and I discussed the possibility of wheeling the tractor, along with the chickens, into our garage to be safe. Fortunately, we didn't need to do that.

In summary, the new design of the chicken tractor is fantastic.  We will likely build another one that mimics this prototype design exactly.